Year after year, often at the urging of political leaders, the BRT quietly raised assessments slightly, with little regard to how much properties were really worth. That brought in more revenue, without City Council having to raise the tax rate. But the system became increasingly unfair.
Board member Alan K. Silberstein now says the BRT members were chumps to play along. "Let them do their job, and maybe the burden will then shift where it belongs," Silberstein said of Council, during a BRT meeting. "They wanted us to be the bad guys.
"And we foolishly went along. That's the real problem."
Painful or not, the city has little choice but to clean up this mess now.
Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh, is an example of what happens when politicians try to delay the inevitable.
The county, with about as many properties as Philadelphia, has been struggling with its tax assessments since 1997, when a Common Pleas Court judge ruled they were fundamentally unfair.
The county hired a private appraisal firm at a cost of $24 million, but a flood of 90,000 appeals followed. There were more lawsuits, arguing that the system still was tilted against the poor.
County politicians fought back, but the state Supreme Court, in a decision in April, said the county needed to try again: The disparities were hurting lower-end neighborhoods, the court decided.
Allegheny County is now likely to go through another reassessment in 2012.
Legal experts say that if Philadelphia doesn't develop a fairer tax system, it is certain to be dragged into the courts and will lose.
At the BRT, Negrin said he would work to understand why some blocks have been targeted for hikes while others were left alone.
He said, though, that he believed the root of the BRT's inconsistency had been not a lack of ability, but a failure of leadership. He said the agency had no performance standards for assessors and no program to test their results for accuracy.
His ultimate goal is for taxpayers to feel confident that, tax hike or no, they've been treated fairly.
Given the BRT's legacy of confusion and ineptitude, that won't be an easy sell.
After an appeal, the BRT trimmed Sladek's proposed increase by half, to 17 percent. But he still believes he's been wronged by the BRT and is considering a lawsuit.
"They think they're going to appease me or appease us by giving us minimal wins in their appeal hearings," he said.
Told about the "reverse lottery" description, Sladek snorted. "I don't feel like I was a winner," he said.
Contact staff writer Mark Fazlollah
at 215-854-5831 or mfazlollah@phillynews.com.
